Though Hell Should Bar the Way - eARC

by David Drake

  “And Woetjans?” the captain said.

  “Even if Jimenez is as slow as the mid-level Foreign Ministry staffers I’ve met have been,” I said, “Ellie would scare him to death. But I would like Tovera, because she wouldn’t scare anybody.”

  Captain Leary’s face went very still. “Have you looked Tovera in the eyes?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. Tovera and her mistress were in earshot, but I didn’t turn my head. “But Jimenez won’t. Most people won’t. They won’t notice her at all.”

  I wouldn’t have either, except that Maeve had told me that Mundy’s clerk was an assassin. Since then I’d been watching her; I had no proof that Tovera was what Maeve called her, but the feeling I got from her was certainly that.

  “Tovera isn’t under my command,” the captain said, “so I can’t—”

  “I can,” said Mundy’s voice from the speaker on the command console. “Tovera is welcome to join Master Olfetrie if he wants to have her. And she’s amenable, of course.”

  “Sure,” said Tovera. Mundy was still looking down at her data unit, but Tovera—as always—was scanning the room with an alert expression, like a lizard looking for a meal. “I don’t expect there’ll be any fun, but I never lose hope.”

  The grin that followed the comment would’ve convinced me that Maeve was right even if I hadn’t already been sure.

  “All right, then,” Captain Leary said. “Tovera, you’ll have to leave your briefcase behind; Sun will find you a set of utilities so that you fit in. Olfetrie, let’s you and I visit our betters.”

  I matched his grin with an equally broad one.

  * * *

  The passengers’ accommodations on Level 3 probably didn’t seem palatial to the civilians, but for somebody who’d gotten used to a cabin barely big enough for its bunk and desk, they certainly seemed so. The captain—or more likely, Officer Mundy—must have alerted the delegation that we were coming, because a female servant held open the hatch to what turned out to be a lounge when we came out of the companionway.

  She bowed as we approached, then closed the panel behind us. Inside were cushioned seats—rather than pressed steel like elsewhere on the ship—and tables with floral designs on the upper surfaces. The only person standing was another servant, this one male. Like the woman at the door, he wore a uniform of brown fabric with a slick finish.

  “Captain Leary,” said the man in the chair facing the hatch. The words were an acknowledgement rather than a greeting. He was alone at a table for four.

  Captain Leary nodded to the seated man. “Director Jimenez, I’ve come to introduce the officer who’ll command your escort to the Councillor’s Residence in Jacquerie. This is Lieutenant Olfetrie.”

  I stepped forward and bowed. “Sir,” I said as I straightened, “I’m greatly honored to be chosen for this duty. I served an internship in the Bureau of Friendship Affairs. I’ve always felt that the Foreign Ministry does more to preserve the Republic than any other branch of government.”

  It was true about the internship: Mother had thought the diplomatic service was more refined than the RCN and had pushed to get both her sons into it. Junior had flat refused, but I’d given it a try.

  It hadn’t worked out well. I was quieter than Junior, but I hadn’t been willing to solemnly nod when a fool talked nonsense to me, and there were other things. At the time, of course, I’d been a rich man’s son looking for a profession rather than a job.

  “You do?” Jimenez said, clearly startled. He was a trim little man, perfectly groomed the way you get only if you spend more time on it than a man ought to spend. “Then why are you here? What are you doing here?”

  I shook my head with a sad expression. “I couldn’t fool myself, sir,” I said. “I knew within a week that I wasn’t fit for the work. I was unwilling to drag down the fine people around me in the department. I was on the Kostroma desk under Director Kwalit.”

  I shrugged. “I still wanted to serve the Republic, so I joined the Navy,” I said, deliberately using the civilian term for the RCN. “It was a surprise, a wonderful surprise, to learn that I was posted here.”

  “Well…” Jimenez said. “You’re confident that your guards won’t embarrass us? You see, Saguntum has no relations whatever with the Republic. Any sort of high-handed behavior or even the sort of normal loutishness to be expected of spacers—it might absolutely scuttle our mission.”

  “Sir,” I said, with more truth than most of what I’d been saying. “I can honestly tell you that I’ve hand picked each person with an eye to intelligence and proper decorum.”

  I regretted that Captain Leary was listening to this. Heaven be thanked that Woetjans wasn’t. She’d take it as a betrayal, and I had a good notion of how she’d deal with a traitor.

  “Well,” said Jimenez. He put a slight emphasis on the word to make it approving. “Here on my right is Master Han”—thin, bald man of uncertain age. His face showed no more expression than an insect’s does—“who’s our finance expert, and on my left Master Banta, whose specialty is agriculture.”

  I exchanged nods with both men. Banta was round, very pale, and gave the impression of having the intelligence of a cabbage…which to a degree he resembled.

  My eyes followed Jimenez’s. For the first time since I’d entered, they rested on Maeve. She was in ochre tonight. Smiling, she nodded to me.

  “And this is Mistress Grimaud, my secretary,” Jimenez said.

  I nodded to her, then returned my gaze to the Director.

  “Well, I must say,” Jimenez said, “this is much better news than I was expecting. Captain Leary, I congratulate you. I’ll make sure my superiors learn how well you’ve executed their instructions.”

  Captain Leary bowed, just as I had when I greeted the Director. He said, “Thank you, sir. We of the RCN set great store on the faithful execution of our orders.”

  We nodded again to the delegates, then left the lounge promptly to go back to where we belonged. I’d have been on the edge of laughter except for one thing: the look in Maeve’s eyes as she smiled at me.

  Maeve moved like a cat. For a moment she’d made me feel like a mouse.

  CHAPTER 14

  The captain and I went from the companionway to the bridge: he to his console, me to stand at parade rest in front of Officer Mundy. She sat as usual with her back to the flat-plate display and her attention on the data unit in her lap.

  Tovera watched me from the jump seat beside her mistress. I was reading amusement into Tovera’s expression, but I knew that was me. I wasn’t sure that Mundy’s servant had feelings.

  “Officer Mundy,” I said. “To prepare for my escort duties, I would like to see pictures of the members of the Councillor’s court whom I may be meeting. Can you provide me with such imagery?”

  “Yes,” said Mundy. I hadn’t been sure she was listening to me, but as an afterthought she looked up at me. “Would you like dossiers on them as well?”

  “Ah, yes, very much,” I said. “That would be…”

  “Take the striker’s position,” Mundy said. Her hands did something with the control wands. “Hogg has no reason to be there.”

  Her eyes lifted and held mine for a moment. “From your performance before Director Jimenez,” she said, “I’m surprised that you didn’t continue with the foreign ministry. You would seem to have a natural aptitude for the work.”

  I swallowed. Captain Leary hadn’t said anything to her; we’d returned to the bridge together. Mundy must have eavesdropping apparatus in the passenger lounge…and very possibly in every other compartment in the Sunray. I thought of Enery’s concern to keep our conversation private.

  I smiled. I didn’t think I’d said anything I shouldn’t have, but there wasn’t much I could do about it now anyway. Aloud I said, “Officer Mundy, I left shortly after telling Director Kwalit that if he didn’t take his hand off my thigh, I was going to rip it off and return it through his arsehole. I don’t think diplomacy is really one of my streng
ths.”

  “I see,” Mundy said. Her eyes returned to her holographic display. “Perhaps you’re correct, then.”

  “Ma’am,” I said. “I could be more helpful if I knew what I was really supposed to be doing.”

  I suppose the tiny movement of Mundy’s lips was a smile. She looked at me again. She appeared to be a middle-aged woman without any distinguishing features, but every atom of her being was precise. She reminded me of a chronometer; or a target pistol.

  “What you’re supposed to do, Olfetrie…” she said. “Is to be yourself. To behave as you would normally behave. That’s all.”

  I wanted to shout, “I don’t understand!” which would have been just as pointless as it was true. Instead I nodded and said, “Thank you, Officer Mundy,” and took the saddle at the back of the console. Hogg had moved to an open seat across the bridge from Tovera.

  The data Mundy had offered waited for me as a glowing icon on the striker’s display. I began sifting through it. There were about forty personnel all told, including members of the Saguntine government, the members of the bureaucracy who would be negotiating with our passengers, prominent business people—and to my surprise, members of the Karst Observation Mission to Saguntum.

  I should have expected that. I knew that though Saguntum was independent in most realms, her foreign policy was wholly under the control of Karst.

  The chief executive of Saguntum was called the Councillor. He was elected for life from the Board of Advisors, of whom he had to be a male member. The Councillor for the past fifteen years was Israel Perez; he’d succeeded his uncle, and before that the Councillor had been his grandfather. Israel was forty, intellectual looking, and had a receding forehead. There was nothing surprising about any of that.

  The surprise came with the second person, Colonel Eugene Foliot, the Director of Public Safety. Foliot’s picture showed a man of over fifty, clean shaven and hard. He wore a civilian suit of thin blue stripes, but he’d have looked more at home in uniform.

  Before coming to Saguntum fifteen years ago and allying himself with the new Councillor Perez, Foliot had been Chief of the Governing Board—ruler—of Garofolo. He left Garofolo after a coup.

  “Officer Mundy,” I said, opening a link to her position, “this is Olfetrie. I have a question about the information you sent me, over.”

  “Go ahead, Olfetrie,” Mundy said through the console. “You want to know why Perez trusts Foliot, I suppose?”

  She didn’t close the statement, but I could see that she’d stopped talking. I said, “Well, yes, ma’am. Why anybody would trust Foliot, I guess. If he was ousted by a coup himself, surely it’d be natural for him to at least consider returning power the same way.”

  “Quite reasonable, granting the initial premise,” Mundy said. “Which is incorrect. Foliot wasn’t ousted by his chancellor’s coup. He survived the bomb explosion which killed his wife, and he carried out a purge of the plotters with a thoroughness that Speaker Leary would have approved. It’s reported that he personally executed several of the leading plotters—and also the technician who placed the bomb. Foliot was quite attached to his wife.”

  If I hadn’t made a point of keeping my mouth closed, I’d have been gaping. When I decided that Mundy had finished speaking, I said, “Ma’am, if he’d won, why did Foliot leave Garofolo? Was he afraid there’d be another coup?”

  Mundy shrugged where she sat, though she didn’t look up at me. “You’ll have to ask him yourself when you see him,” she said. “If I were speculating, I would suspect that he felt uncomfortable about doing what he felt necessary after the coup he’d survived.”

  Suddenly she did look at me. “There’s no evidence that Speaker Leary regretted his similar actions, however.”

  “I see,” I said. “Thank you, Officer Mundy. Olfetrie out.”

  There was more to what Mundy had said than was in her words, but I didn’t know what it was. She had to be referring to the Three Circles Conspiracy, but that had taken place before I was born.

  I could look it up on the console’s database, but I might as well ask Mundy directly since certainly she would learn about any search I made on the Sunray. It sounded like a minefield, and it seemed a much better idea for me to leave it alone.

  I resumed reading about the Saguntine government.

  * * *

  “Saguntum Orbital Control, we are preparing to land,” Cory announced. Orbital Control was a tug with no interstellar capacity and additional sensors and communications gear added. “Break. Ship, prepare for landing. Braking for landing…now!”

  Cory slammed the High Drive on hard. I had an image of Jacquerie Harbor set at the center bottom of my display. It began to swell, though that was a computer effect in between samples of real imagery from the sensors when the orbit permitted it.

  I was in the stern station, seated at the flat-plate display alongside Lieutenant Enery. My hand was poised over the switch that would return our landing to computer control if Cory and Enery were simultaneously struck dead. Even a disaster of vanishingly small likelihood wasn’t going to make me capable of a manual landing in crisis conditions.

  For several seconds the thrusters added their braking effort to that of the High Drives. Then the High Drive buzzing vanished and even the roar of the thrusters became lost in the shaking and rattling of the atmospheric buffeting as the Sunray plunged deeper toward the surface.

  Beside me, Enery had her fingers on the virtual throttles at the base of her display. She was prepared to take over manually if something happened to Cory. I’d seen how skillful she was when she landed on Hansen’s World so I didn’t doubt that she could do it…and yet, and yet—

  It was just a form of bragging. There was no point in it, and no point in Cory choosing to make a manual landing to begin with. There were circumstances where a manual landing was a good idea—when the landing had to be made on a hard surface, a skilled human could ease the ship in more gently than a computer would when billowing steam didn’t swaddle the hull in the final approach. Jacquerie had a well-appointed harbor, and at present it wasn’t even crowded.

  Maybe Cory felt that practice made perfect. More likely, he was bragging—and Enery was ready to play the same game.

  And why had I decided to join the RCN? Sure, now it was a job with a real chance of advancement, but at the time I decided to enter the Academy I was the son of a wealthy entrepreneur who moved at the highest levels of the Republic. I could have spent my life in study and leisure activities—or in drunken debauchery, like the sons of most of Dad’s intimates.

  Cory brought the Sunray into balance with gravity at two hundred feet, then eased her to the surface. For a moment I thought we were drifting; then I realized that Cory had hovered us to the mouth of the slip and was slanting us in bow foremost. As the thruster exhaust licked the harbor, steam shrouded the Sunray and hid our surroundings in the optical range. I manually switched to active imaging—microwave—as we slid neatly into our berth. It had been a lovely piece of work.

  The thrusters shut down, though the slap of water between the walls of the slip continued to buffet us as the environment cooled.

  I took my fingers from the controls and let out a deep breath. I was where I wanted to be.

  If choosing to be a member of the RCN was a form of bragging, so be it. It was something worth bragging about.

  CHAPTER 15

  The cabin of the limousine which the Saguntines provided for the officials had room for six; I waited while they entered. Maeve Grimaud sat primly with her back to the driver, facing the three men from the Foreign Ministry. The vehicle was old—probably of off-planet manufacture—but it had been lovingly maintained (or possibly restored).

  The locals had provided an armored personnel carrier for me and the escort. It moved on wheels like the limousine, but it was much newer and was locally built. Sun chatted with the vehicle commander in the cupola about the APC’s automatic impeller.

  I watched the limousine follow
ing us through the armored glass (I’d opened the steel shutter) in the rear gate. I didn’t know what I could do if something had happened to the limousine, but I guess I had to worry about something.

  The APC had ports in the sides through which I got glimpses of Jacquerie, sepia toned by the thick glass. It looked pretty ordinary. Along our route it had been mostly one- and two-story structures with businesses on the ground floor and apartments on the higher level. There’d been a handful which were tall enough that I couldn’t see the tops through the windows, but I was pretty sure four stories was as high as anything got here.

  We drove past a stone-faced building set back behind a plaza; our APC slowed to a halt. There were full-height pilasters set into the facade, and a pair of ornamental-looking guards at the entrances. Civilians on the plaza lounged in the shade of trees in big pots.

  I fumbled to open the gate, but Sun reached past me and dropped the ramp with a clang of steel on stone. We trotted out and were standing beside the limo before the Saguntine staff—a driver and his assistant—got the passenger doors open.

  Sun grinned at me and said, “That was a combat release. The hydraulics would’ve taken forever, and I didn’t think you wanted to wait.”

  “Too bloody right,” I muttered as Director Jimenez got out gracefully. He had experience doing that sort of thing.

  The driver’s assistant whispered to me, “I’ll guide you if you like, sir.”

  I nodded, because I certainly would like. With Sun beside me and the four ministry people strung out behind us, we walked to the entrance. The rest of my spacers brought up the rear.

  Maeve was in a black suit whose flowing trouser legs could have been a skirt to look at. The tailored jacket she wore over the dark-gray tunic was completely demure—but a prostitute on the strip outside Harbor Three couldn’t have looked more alluring.